Nantes | |
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State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 309346 |
Nantes (, also US: , French: [nɑ̃t] (listen); Gallo: Naunnt or Nantt [nɑ̃(ː)t]; Breton: Naoned [ˈnãunət]) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, 50 km (31 mi) from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth-largest in France, with a population of 309,346 in Nantes and a metropolitan area of nearly 973,000 inhabitants (2017). With Saint-Nazaire, a seaport on the Loire estuary, Nantes forms one of the main north-western French metropolitan agglomerations.
It is the administrative seat of the Loire-Atlantique department and the Pays de la Loire region, one of 18 regions of France. Nantes belongs historically and culturally to Brittany, a former duchy and province, and its omission from the modern administrative region of Brittany is controversial.
Nantes was identified during classical antiquity as a port on the Loire. It was the seat of a bishopric at the end of the Roman era before it was conquered by the Bretons in 851. Although Nantes was the primary residence of the 15th-century dukes of Brittany, Rennes became the provincial capital after the 1532 union of Brittany and France.
Charlotte | |
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State | North Carolina |
Country | United States of America |
Capital | |
Population | 751087 |
Charlotte () is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population was 885,708, making it the 15th-most populous city in the U.S. and the second-largest in the Southeast behind Jacksonville, Florida. The city is the cultural, economic, and transportation center of the Charlotte metropolitan area, whose population ranks 23rd in the U.S., and had a population of 2,569,213, in 2018. The Charlotte metropolitan area is part of a sixteen-county market region or combined statistical area with a 2018 census-estimated population of 2,728,933.Between 2004 and 2014, Charlotte was ranked as the country's fastest-growing metro area, with 888,000 new residents. Based on U.S. Census data from 2005 to 2015, Charlotte tops the U.S. in millennial population growth. It is the second-largest city in the southeastern United States, just behind Jacksonville, Florida. It is the third-fastest-growing major city in the United States.